1. Technical Field
This disclosure relates generally to a single piece hammock strap with integral woven eyelets. More specifically, the hammock strap disclosed herein is useful in outdoor applications, such as, for example, supporting a hammock.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many outdoor activities require that participants camp overnight in order to fully enjoy a chosen work or recreational activity. However, camping, in many cases, is substantially less comfortable than sleeping in a bed. This lack of comfort can lead to restless sleeping, poor rest, and general fatigue, lessening the overall enjoyment of the chosen work or recreational activity for which the participants camped overnight in the first place.
Tents, sleeping pads, tarps, makeshift shelters, recreational vehicles, and other sleeping implements increase the ability of participants in outdoor activities to enjoy spending the night in the outdoors. However, these exemplary sleeping implements are not practical for use in many situations. For example, a hiker on a backpacking trip must carry tools with which to construct a shelter or the shelter itself (i.e., a tent) to the place in which the hiker intends to camp. Carrying either tools or a tent, however, presents other difficulties.
For example, when campers do not have access to a vehicle while camping, and sometimes even when campers do have access to a vehicle, a camper can be limited in the equipment that can be brought because of both excessive weight and excessive bulk. While many would consider a bed to be more comfortable to sleep in than a tent, most campers cannot carry a bed to a camping spot because the bed is too heavy to practically carry. Similarly, some tents may also be too heavy to carry when a camper considers the other items the camper must bring to increase comfort while camping. Excessive bulk is better described in terms of volume. For example, a camper may use a pack that has a finite volume and that can only hold camping comfort items of a specific size. Some camping comfort items, while not necessarily heavy, require a substantial amount of space within a pack. Thus, a camper must carefully balance the gear that can or should be brought camping with the amount of weight that can be carried and the available space in which the gear can be carried.
Hammocks have conventionally been reliable to increase camper comfort during an overnight outdoor activity while also being relatively light and relatively compact, compared to a tent, for example. The main drawback of a hammock is finding a suitable area in which to hang the hammock. In order for a camper to use the hammock under conventional conditions, a camper must find two fixed structures, such as trees, that are appropriately spaced and large enough to support the weight of the camper in the hammock. Conventionally, hammock campers use rope to tie each end of a hammock to a tree at an appropriate height. However, many times, the rope used to tie each end of a hammock slips or slides down the tree, resulting in the camper dropping to the ground. Under conventional conditions, campers would find trees with branches at an appropriate height that would prevent a tie rope from sliding down a tree. Frequently, however, other branches on the tree would have to be cut to allow the camper to stretch a tie rope around a tree. This resulted in substantial damage to trees in popular camping areas.
In response to this arboreal damage caused by campers with hammocks, many states passed laws preventing campers from damaging live trees by hanging hammocks. Accordingly, attempts were made to provide hammock tie down attachments that do not cause damage to trees. One such attempt is described in U.S. Pat. No. 9,003,579, which describes a hammock support strap. Essentially, this hammock support strap provides a plurality of hook points that are folded over on each other and sewn into the strap using stitching. When one looped end of the strap is inserted in another looped end of the strap, the strap cinches down on a tree without damaging the tree. The camper may attach a hammock to one of the hook points along the length of the strap. These folded over portions of the strap provide adequate strength to support a camper's weight within the hammock.
At the same time, however, conventional hammock straps, such as the one described above, require substantial stitching by skilled seamster, which increases production costs. More problematic, however, is that the folding portion of the hooks to provide adequate strength to support a camper's weight in the hammock also substantially increases the overall bulk of conventional straps. In other words, the folded over portion of the hooks along the strap, by its very nature creates more undesirable bulk because the folds increase the overall space required to contain the strap during transport to and from a camping site.
It is therefore one object of this disclosure to provide a hammock strap useful in, but not limited to, attaching a hammock to a fixed structure, such as a tree. Another object of this disclosure is to provide a hammock strap that reduces weight and bulk. Finally, an object of this disclosure is to provide a method of making a hammock strap.